I'm a Brit on holiday in Rwanda currently. I've been away since day 1 of the World Cup. Plenty of advertising here in the capital Kigali about the tournament - mainly MTN phone network and drinks brands (coca-cola especially). I say plenty of advertising, that is a relative term here for even in the capital there aren't that many ad hoardings etc. The local English language daily (New Times) has a smattering of coverage - mainly its back page. The new weekly paper "Focus" featured a pull-out wall chart in its latest edition, with KO times in BST, even though we are on continental time here. I haven't really checked what the local Kinyrwanda language papers are doing.
Bars show the matches, that is for sure. Some with English commentary, some French (Canal+). But only a few matches seem to generate much local interest and audience. Ghana's first match was the main one I have seen have a strong local following. But I have been out on the road and/or staying in places without a TV, so don't have a full picture. Can't get English commentary on radio though, which is annoying.
People seem only mildly interested in the World Cup here, certainly compared to what I was expecting. I have asked a variety of men and youths - in my mixture of French, Swahili and English - which team they support. The most common response .... Arsenal! Seen many Arsenal shirts and other fake merchandise around and being worn. The ex-pat community is very different though! They were handing out German flags at the German-run supermarket in town yesterday. And a meeting in the Finance Ministry was postponed yesterday as the English people there wanted to see the England-Trinidad match. I caught a few Min's of it in a very popular bar. Yet it wasn't that popular last night. We were the only Wang (white people) there and there were maybe a dozen Rwandans watching too. Perhaps the timing had something to do with it, I don't know. Don't get me wrong, the football passion is alive here, just not to nearly the same extent as many other countries this month.
Malcolm Clark
Having recently watched "Hotel Rwanda" I wouldn't be holidaying there but your correspondent's blog was interesting especially as nothing new over the past two days ?
Our CAP2 Statistically Significant analysis of tonight's PORTUGAL 1 HOLLAND 0 supported only a "deserved draw". However the performance of Valentin Ivanov [the Russian Referee chosen by FIFA] raises somes serious questions especially with regard to the putting on trial in Italy of Juventus, AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina claiming that they "got at" Referees to influence the outcome of matches.
So why not accuse Valentin Ivanov of having been got at by the FA to influence the sending off sufficient players from both Portugal and Holland so that England would have an easier contest next weekend ? After all he did manage to set a record of Nine Yellows for Portugal and Seven for Holland including Two Red Cards for Deco and Costinha from Portugal who will now be unable to represent Portugal in their Quarter Final against England unless of course Deco's is correctly rescinded ?
We have been Statistically Significantly analysing Football televised into the UK since 1979 including literally hundreds of games involving those Four Italian Serie A Clubs during the suspect period so are probably unique in being able to calculate a "deserved Margin of Victory" to be compared against the Actual Outcome to remove or perhaps intensify the alleged guilt ?
We have now analysed 51 of the 52 World Cup Games which so far have been played in Germany. Sadly Errors made by the Match Officials have resulted in "deserved outcomes" differing from actual outcomes in most of them such as we have just demonstrated for PORTUGAL 1 HOLLAND 0 where Holland "earned 2.10 Goals from Twenty Nine Scoring Opportunities to average 0.10 Goal after Eight were Discarded as each not considered to be worth even 0.043 [1/24th] Goal.
A total almost agreed by the FIFA Official Match Statistics with Nine "On" out of 20 Attempted. Whereas CAP2 logged Fifteen Scoring Opportunities for Holland from which they earned 2.15 Goals to average 0.17 Goal" after just Two were Discarded". But to beat England next Weekend they should be averaging closer to 0.30 Goal ? Which they are now much less likely to achieve without Deco ?
As we have been saying for the past decade all these unfair outcomes could probably be avoided by granting each Manager the option of Two Time Outs over the First Half plus another over the Second Half using up to 90 Seconds of Stoppage for the 4th [or 5th] Match Official to access the same Immediate Slo Mo Replay as shown to the Worldwide TV Audience to either confirm or reverse the Referee's Most Controversial Decision. And hopefully avoiding Referees ever again be able to completely ruin games such as tonight which the various Initiative Staff will confirm was eagerly watched Worldwide by most of us expecting a Skillfest.
Posted by: Bob Copeman | 25 June 2006 at 11:41 PM
I haven't really checked what the local Kinyrwanda language papers are doing.
Posted by: birkenstock online shop | 23 June 2011 at 08:51 AM